NB: This week, we’re taking a look back at some of our favorite and our most popular pieces of writing this year. We’ve got a week of best-of posts to share, with reviews, cover snark, and more. We hope you enjoy revisiting our archives, and most of all, we wish you and yours a wonderful holiday and a happy new year – with all the very best of reading.
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Say hello to the top five Cover Snark posts of 2025! These are the most viewed Snark posts from last December to now! It’s such a joy to put these together and I hope you all get as much joy from reading them.
Let’s count them down!
5. Does Jane Austen Know About This? (September 8)
Classic Jane Austen novels received some modern cover designs that left us all a little perplexed. There’s also a man with a hazardous belly button and a pair of smug bears (the animal kind).
Best reader comment is from Kate Rose:
Wow…nothing about the Northanger Abbey cover says romance with gothic vibes, unless she’s actually trying to strangle him with her hand on his neck. I must not be the target audience – the cover is off-putting and that it’s supposed to be Jane Austin just makes it worse.
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4. What Have They Done to Jude Deveraux (February 24)
This is another case of a well-known author getting cover redesigns that are real head-scratchers. There’s a font that hurts our eyeballs. We also learn a little bit more about rugby and pose the question: Would Dunkin Donuts ever sponsor a rugby team?
Best reader comment is from Empress of Blandings:
Re rugby: there is also a loosehead prop, which sounds messier.
Someone needs to write a romance set in the world of cricket, as I feel there’s potential in several of the fielding positions such as long on, or fly slip. Perhaps less so for square leg or silly mid-on. But you have to respect a game that has built-in tea breaks.
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3. How Do Legs Work? (Diagrams Included) (August 11)
We really tried to make sense of some leg placement. Sarah even drew a diagram and turned it into a gif. Now that’s dedication! I was also confused about the title, Pall Mall Peer, as Pall Malls to me are cigarettes.
Best reader comment is from Randall M:
Amanda:
Your question about Pall Mall got me wondering. According to Wikipaedia (which we all know is never wrong), Pall Mall is a fashionable street in London, particularely known in the 19th century for fashion, the War Office, and some Royal Family housing. It also notes, “The cigarette manufacturer Rothmans has its head office at No. 65 Pall Mall”. The name “Rothmans” is a link, clicking on which takes you to the “Rothmans International” page, which has on its “Products and Brands” listing, Pall Mall. That takes you to the “Pall Mall (cigarette)” page, which tells us it was a “premiere cigarette”, named for the street.
And now you know why I’m not allowed to answer questions any more.
Ed. note: We are clearly an educational website.
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2. A 20th Anniversary Cover Snark Retrospective (January 29)
To celebrate the site’s 20th anniversary, Candy and Sarah swam deep into the waters of some vintage Cover Snark, unearthing things that probably aren’t fit for human eyeballs…or any eyeballs for that matter.
Best reader comment is from Jill Q.:
Candy! The scream I scrumpt when I saw you were making a guest appearance! I don’t know if I’ve been reading Smart Bs for the whole 20 years, but I definitely go back all the way to the Candy days and when I was not Jill Q. but Jill some other initial 😉 It’s so great of you to stop by and I hope life is treating you well.
Meanwhile, yes in all important cover snark commentary, that last lady in the Victoria Alexander looks like she’s thinking “man, I really got to let one rip. Let me position my butt just so in this strategic gap in the holly bushes for maximum effect.”
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1. An Us Anus (June 9)
Confusing choices abound! I have no statistics to back this up, but I feel like fonts, leading, and kerning were some of our biggest Snark offenders.
Best reader comment is from the Jazzlet:
The Lonely Mortician isn’t very professional, while the bottle is labelled CH2O, or formaldehyde, it clearly contains blood. The properties of these liquids are very different, and that cover is a lesson in why you should keep liquids in the original containers unless you have another correctly labelled bottle.
And that’s our top five! What do you think? Did you have any Cover Snark favorites this year?
